Digital Divide

This Public Notice serves as notice that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has appointed chairs for the three working groups for the Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment (ACDDE):
Henry Rivera, Senior Advisor, Emma Bowen Foundation, will chair the Broadcast Diversity and Development Working Group.
Heather Gate, Director of Digital Inclusion, Connected Nation, will chair the Digital Empowerment and Inclusion Working Group.
Marc H. Morial, President and CEO, National Urban League, will chair the Diversity in the Tech Sector Working Group.

Chairman Pai previously designated Julia Johnson, President, NetCommunications, LLC, to serve as Chair of the ACDDE, and Diane Sutter, President/CEO, ShootingStar Broadcasting, to serve as Vice Chair. The ACDDE will hold its first meeting on Monday, September 25, 2017.

It's hard to run a successful business without access to high speed broadband. That was the message that repeatedly surfaced as Senate Democrats discussed issues important to rural America during a rural summit on Sept. 13.

Sen Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) joined senators from Montana, Delaware. North Carolina, Minnesota, Michigan and other states, along with national leaders, to discuss issues important to rural America, with an emphasis on boosting economic opportunity. Representing Wisconsin, Sen Baldwin was joined by Wisconsin Farmers Union President Darin Von Ruden and James Wessing, president of Kondex Corporation in Lomira.

In describing the importance of rural communities, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) pointed out that about 60 million Americans live in rural areas, which is equivalent to 20 percent of the US population. However, the other 80 percent of the nation's population relies on that 20 percent for their food, energy and "so much of what they need to survive day to day."

There’s no question that high-speed Internet is a game-changer for rural Americans. It’s improving standards of living more than any new technology since the rural electrification effort in the early 20th century. That is—so long as you have access. And that’s the big challenge.

Rural Americans too often find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide. In rural America, 28% of households lack access to high-speed, fixed service. In urban areas, only 2% go without. Rural Americans are missing out on opportunities for jobs, health care, education, and more, and there’s a significant cost to those lost opportunities. But I worry that we’re losing something even greater if rural communities remain stuck in the analog age. That’s the slow fade of rural communities themselves. To be clear, I’m not saying that the digital divide is the reason why rural communities are shrinking. This trend started before the commercial Internet even existed. What I am saying is that how we deal with the digital divide will affect the destiny of towns like Parsons and Ulysses and Beloit and Hiawatha. It’ll help determine if this population loss gets faster, slows down, or is potentially reversed. Broadband-enabled opportunities for jobs, education, health care, and agriculture can be a great equalizer for rural America. But so long as some rural communities don’t have broadband, they’ll fall further and further behind.

To spur network deployment in sparsely populated areas where the economic incentives for private investment don’t exist, the FCC is providing direct funding that leverages—not displaces—private capital expenditures. But we also want to modernize our regulations to give companies a stronger business case to build and expand high-speed networks. The plain truth is that bureaucratic red tape at all levels of government can slow the pace and increase the cost of network deployment.

Indigenous peoples living on tribal lands are some of the most underserved people in the US when it comes to broadband. Many tribes share similar barriers no matter where they are in the country. But one group of tribes in southern California is using every tool it can think of, including using television spectrum to broadcast internet wirelessly. Unfortunately, they've run into one totally unique hurdle: TV channels are bleeding over the border from Mexico, and eating up their spectrum.

This paper examines the impact of countries' distance between their Internet usage and the world' average of the Internet usage intensity on their integration into the world market of trade in commercial services.

Using an unbalanced panel dataset of 175 countries over the annual period 2000–2013, the empirical analysis indicates that the narrowing of the Internet-related distance would improve countries' integration into the world trade in commercial services market. Furthermore, it helps those countries that are geographically far from the world market to compensate for the adverse effect of this geographical distance on their integration into the world market of trade in commercial services.

Altice USA said “Economy Internet,” an uncapped broadband service for low-income households, is now available across its Optimum (former Cablevision Systems) and Suddenlink footprints.

The service, for eligible families and senior citizens, offers 30 Mbps (downstream) and integrated in-home Wi-Fi for $14.99 per month. Altice USA launched Economy Internet is select areas of the New York region in 2016, and was linked to a commitment to introduce a low income broadband option throughout the former Cablevision service territory.

More than 52 percent of people on the planet still don't have Internet access. Men outnumber women as Web users in every region of the world. And there remain massive disparities in connection speeds in different countries. These are just some of the major findings outlined in a new United Nations report about the state of the world's Internet connections.

While average global Internet speeds are now 7.7 megabits per second, there is a gulf between the fastest and slowest. South Korea's average broadband speed is 28.6 Mbps, for instance, while Nigeria's is a paltry 1.5 Mbps. In fact, the report warns that "the 'digital divide' risks becoming a 'digital chasm' [due to] deepening inequality in global connectivity.”

The internet is a way for people in poorer or far-flung communities to connect with social programs and educational opportunities, such as employment and health services, to which they might not otherwise have access. But according to a new report from the Brookings Institution, residents in low-income or rural neighborhoods are the least likely to have broadband subscriptions.

The richer and more educated a neighborhood is, the Brookings report says, the more likely its residents are to have internet that reaches that threshold. While 73 percent of Americans have broadband service in their homes, college graduates are three times more likely to have the subscription than high-school graduates. In 2015, nearly a quarter of Americans lived in low-subscription neighborhoods, meaning that fewer than 40 percent of households in the area had a broadband connection. The 17.7 million children who live in low-subscription neighborhoods are particularly impacted by this dearth. As schoolwork becomes increasingly digital, a lack of broadband access makes it difficult for kids to complete homework assignments and research projects.

The survey effort recontacted 429 past participants of the Connect Your Community project that had participated in a 2012 impact survey and produced findings that show the long-term and continuing impact of high-touch digital inclusion efforts 5 years after project completion. Highlights:
76 percent of all respondents maintained their home internet subscription.
65 percent of those without a home internet connection say cost is the primary reason for them not maintaining their service. 18 percent say it is their lack of a computer.
Only 10 percent of respondents report a lack of interest or need for home internet, preferring to rely on community resources.
43 percent of connected respondents use patient health record (PHRs) portals to manage their health online.
69 percent of connected and 60 percent of unconnected respondents report that they use a computer for their job.
82 percent report that their participation in the Connect Your Community project resulted in a positive workforce-related impact.
Half of the population (50.47 percent) said that they shared what they learned in the CYC project with others outside of the community centers; in their own personal networks.
Only 17 percent of respondents were aware of data caps on their service. Of these, 51 percent report having an unlimited internet plan, while the rest report data caps as low as 20gb or less per month

Once again we will read headlines trumpeting faults in the Federal Communications Commission’s Lifeline program that do not match the realities of the day. Despite significant reforms made under the previous administration and no new evidence of waste, fraud, or abuse, the Lifeline program continues to be under attack while our nation’s most vulnerable remain on the wrong side of the digital and opportunities divide. I am especially disappointed by the current FCC majority and those who repeatedly reject real reform efforts. This administration refuses to allow new broadband providers into the Lifeline program, which will deepen and cement the digital divide while omitting the fact that the Lifeline program has one of the lowest improper payment rates of all government subsidy programs.

Continuing to vilify our nation’s only means-tested universal service program and remaining on the sidelines while communities and their residents do without connectivity, is a dereliction of the oath we were sworn to uphold. I, for one, remain committed to working with those who wish to improve the only FCC program that directly tackles the challenge of affordability in communications. Going forward, it is my sincere hope that those who are empowered to help those in need, will offer solutions, not attacks, so that we may enable all of our citizens to participate in a 21st century digital economy.